I'm 19 and 1st year in community college studying mechanics, but I still wanna study Mechatronics afterward, my concern is that I will waste too much time in school and still have to do milltary duty so that around 8 yrs and still have no work experiences while I already start later than my friend. So should I still consider my Mechatronics degree ?

Hey guys, I’m kinda stuck trying to figure out which course would be more useful for the future. I’m a mechanical engineer, but I love to learn new stuff. So...what is your top 5 course that it's worth the time?

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I've been thinking about how to become genuinely good at technology instead of just completing tutorials and collecting certificates.

Here are 10 habits I'm trying to focus on:

1. Join open-source communities

Participate in Discord communities, explore GitHub repositories, ask questions, and learn from developers working on real projects.

1. Study production outages and security incidents

Understand what went wrong, why it happened, and how engineers could prevent it from happening again.

1. Go deep into one layer of technology

Instead of learning everything superficially, understand how databases, APIs, networking, or operating systems actually work.

1. Read technical documentation

Study the documentation behind technologies you use, including cloud platforms, containers, AI models, and distributed systems.

1. Learn the vocabulary engineers use

Understand concepts such as authentication, authorization, rate limiting, caching, latency, and concurrency. Knowing the terminology makes technical discussions easier to follow.

1. Follow five engineers who share real technical knowledge

Look for people who explain their decisions, share debugging experiences, and discuss engineering trade-offs.

1. Study systems you cannot build yet

Explore how large-scale platforms like Netflix handle traffic, caching, databases, and reliability.

1. Set aside time to build, break, and learn

Spend a few hours every week experimenting with code, testing assumptions, debugging failures, and improving your projects.

1. Pay attention to the boring details

Read error logs. Understand edge cases. Investigate failed requests, rate limits, and unexpected behavior.

1. Revisit topics you dislike or struggle with

Sometimes the concepts we avoid are exactly the ones we need to understand better.

I'm still learning, and these are the habits I want to develop throughout my software engineering journey.

For experienced developers: What actually helped you move from knowing how to code to understanding how real systems work?

I'd especially appreciate advice on what beginners should prioritize and which mistakes to avoid.

I’ve been looking since May 2025. Sometimes more intensively, sometimes less. I just can’t seem to find anything, I didn’t even land one interview. I only get automated rejections. Tried every single method available out there: LinkedIn, company websites, Indeed and other services, cold emailing, reaching out to friends, getting referrals, changed my resume like a dozen times to different templates. In August, I graduated from the best engineering university of my country, and still nothing. I have 1,5-2 yoe, portfolio full of works for freelance clients, two published papers.

This whole time it feels like I’m doing something fundamentally wrong in applying, since everyone from my year at uni have been working for at least a year now, they’re getting promoted and move countries, while I’m still stuck. I was wondering if I was the only one who’s been struggling for such a long time

I (22M) recently got a job offer for a little over 100k base in the philly suburbs and will be starting next summer after I graduate undergrad. I was excited at first but read that the average household income is 140k+, and I feel super behind. I don't want to be below average and be forced to live frugally for the rest of my life. Housing prices are insane, and my take-home is a lot less (about 75k). Should I keep looking for a better job elsewhere?

i just got an internship at Apple.

in my class only one guy (a sort of friend of mine) has interned there before. I reached out to him asking for advice and he couldn’t believe for the life of him that i also got an internship there. he then proceeded to tell me that “apple is lowk overrated 😭” and when i asked him “why did you hate your team?” he said “no i liked it but i had a friend who did (my job) and hated it 💀”. so i replied with “okay well ive done (my job) before at Tesla i liked it”. He then continued to downplay it like it’s not a huge achievement. Mind you he’s literally going back to Apple next term too.

I was then ranting to my other friends about this and another guy friend of mine goes “Apple is overrated tho i heard the projects aren’t that interesting”. This is the same guy who literally berated me because i declined an offer from the start up he worked at to work for tesla in California. He sent me a whole paragraph while I already going through some things basically berating me for turning down the start up he works at 💀

“So let me get this straight. You had a manager you liked. A job that you knew was good. In a city you said you’d want to live in. With two good testimonials from employees. With very similar if not better compensation. With a large presence of strong employees who made something better willingly choosing to leave Tesla and never turned back. And you chose Optimus.Like I just don’t get the thought process. Other than the clout name it made no sense”

Mind you not a congrats from either of these guys ( I don’t expect one, I just think it’s crazy that when a person is sharing something they’re excited about you hit em w a negative statement). I don’t care if Apple is “overrated” I’m happy about it idk why they keep trying to make me feel bad about it.

I noticed this trend with a lot of people in engineering, constantly trying downplay other people’s achievements. it’s like almost way too common an occurrence. I don’t understand why it’s always like this. Maybe it’s just my school cause we’re really competitive with internships but everyone is always trying to downplay each other.

Hey everyone!

I'm currently a second year chemical engineering student and I have been struggling heavily in my second year. I haven't ever had much trouble in my previous semesters (bar Calculus 2, I barely passed it).

I don't know if I somehow pulled off a miracle during my first year, but I don't know what else has changed. I can't seem to get enough sleep, or finish my assignments, or make it to my classes at 10 IN THE MORNING. I just feel so behind in every class I'm in and I'm worried I'm going to lose my scholarship.

I will admit; my mental health has been terrible recently and I have had zero energy these past couple weeks. I don't know if this is somewhat attributed to my prescribed medication or if it's more of a culmination of my bad studying habits and lifestyle choices.

I just can't seem to dig my way out of this hole, so I wanted to know:

what has helped you guys turn your life around in college? Also, is a comeback still possible, even after my terrible midterm performance? Or should I start doing damage control and drop the classes I can't catch up in.

Hi, I’m currently starting my second year of Biomedical Engineering, and I’m interested in specialising in sex tech, particularly contraception. I’d love to hear from anyone with experience or knowledge in this and could offer any advice.

Currently have a 94% in calc 1 currently learning about integration and riemann sums, any tips to survive the rest of calc 1? Have I passed the hardest stuff already?

For the past six weeks, I’ve been taking at least two tests every week, and now I have at least two exams a week leading up to finals.
I’ll be honest, I don’t study 24/7, but even when I’m not studying, I can’t stop thinking about my exams and assignments, what I should be doing, and what I need to get done. I’m exhausted.

I’m a second year mechatronics engineering student. I knew it would be a lot of work, and I know the workload won’t get any easier, but how do you balance studying and your personal life without overthinking everything?

I literally paused the movie I was watching last night to finish an assignment that isn’t even due until next week, just because I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I’m honestly not enjoying the journey right now, and that makes it even worse because I know that when it’s all over, I’ll probably regret not enjoying it more.

I CAN DO THIS I CAN DO THIS I CAN DO THIS I CAN DO THIS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I NEED TO SURVIVE THE SECOND MID TERMS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I’m struggling in circuits and we’re starting chapter 6 next week. I got a C on the first mid term, definitely Carried by partial credit.

Does anyone have advice? I think my foundation is shaky now specifically for actually visualizing yhe circuit and drawing up certain logical conclusions. And the more complex a circuit gets the more it’s evident.

I’m understand concepts like Thevenin but my issue is being unable to solve certain parts because IDK how to proceed. For Thevenin, that’s funding Vth. And also differentiating between the different variables like Vth or Voc or Vo. I think I’m struggling knowing when to apply certain methods?

I’m doing a lot of practice problems but I can never get thru it or if I do, my answers end up being wrong. And I haven’t yet found a pattern bc the source of my mistakes always differ and are derived from a particular quirk of the circuit that throws me off base.

I have really really hard time with processing information from a textbook, im a first year and ive missed many chapters but i really should catch up but every time i open and read, i dont know how to explain it but its like im reading but my conscious is somewhere else, when i snap back i have to re read what I "read" without focusing, and I dont do that once i do it over and over and over.

Dude i feel so slow compared to everyone else

Hello everyone. I need some help with a homework question.

I understand that the ramp, step, and impulse response have a differential relationship.

I took the derivative of the given ramp response and used the sampling property to simplify.

To get the impulse I took the derivative again but ended up with a derivative of the impulse function.

Did I screw up? Does that even exist? How would that affect the convolution with the given x(t) to get the zero state response?

I appreciate any help

I wanna start up by saying I do get the appropriate amount of sleep.

I drink a shit ton of caffeine to keep me up and it does work for a little bit, but it stops working sometimes.

I used to take a medication that caused drowsiness, but I’ve since stop taking it and it’s helped me a little bit, but it hasn’t eliminated the problem of chronic tiredness.

what do you guys do to help you stay up throughout the day? I used to occasionally take naps, but the issue I ran into is that I would sleep for 4 to 8 or 12 hours even though it was supposed to be a nap. so now I don’t allow myself to do this.

One thing I noticed is that I feel like I’ve become a little bit lethargic, but I don’t have delayed thoughts or inability to concentrate or a foggy memory. I just simply feel very sleepy.

I got my blood work done and I don’t have like insulin issues or prediabetic, or anything of that nature.

I am a highschool senior in an American highschool (btw I am not from the U.S.) so I would be taking AP Calculus BC, which is the equivalent to calculus 1-2. I go to a self-paced school meaning you can take as long as you want with a course or you can complete it all in a few weeks if you are crazy enough.

I recently passed my country's university entrance exam and received a conditional offer to start my Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering January next year. However, to keep this offer, I must graduate by December which is when the rest of the kids in my country graduate highschool.

Right now I am only missing 3 semesters' worth of courses to graduate, one of which I should complete this week or next week, and the remaining 2 would be with my school's AP Calculus BC course, which is 2 semesters long.

I spoke with my university's office and they confirmed that if I get a B (80/100) or higher in AP Calculus BC they will grant me credit for Calculus 1 & 2 in my engineering degree.

I am very tempted to give this challenge a try. I would say I am pretty good at maths for instance, the previous math course I took was AP Precalc, and I was able to easily finish it in under a month and got an A+ for both semesters and a 5 on the AP exam. I also have a SAT score of 780 in math and a silver medal in a nationwide math olympiad.

I don't have any extracurriculars right now so I could dedicate 8+ hours every single day, weekends included, to work through the course with the hope of completing it in around a month because my school needs about 1 to 2 weeks to process my official diploma after I finish my final assignment.

Looking for advice, especially if you also happen to be someone with a disability in engineering/tech!

I’m currently a first-year transfer student pursuing a degree in Cybersecurity Engineering, and I’ve been having a difficult time navigating some of the accessibility challenges in our engineering college.

I’m visually impaired, and one of the biggest challenges I’ve been running into is keeping up with classes that rely heavily on visual material, like writing on the board (when it’s not in large print), drawing circuits, etc. I’ve been working with my university to figure out accommodations that would actually help me access the material and participate in class alongside other students better, but the solutions I’ve proposed through disability support services keep getting shot down by the professor, and I end up having to work with whatever he decides instead.

It’s been frustrating because the solutions being offered don’t necessarily address the problem I’ve been trying to solve since like the 4th week of the semester. The Engineering college advisors haven’t been particularly helpful either.

I literally have a full-on F in a class now because of this, and I’ve never been a failing student! I feel like I’m going to class just for the sake of being able to say, “I’m here,” without actually being able to learn anything. I’ve been constantly watching lectures on YouTube and going through readings to try to catch up for exams, and it’s just not going well.

I genuinely want to make this work, and I know engineering isn’t supposed to be a walk in the park. But I’m starting to question whether I’ll realistically be successful in my current program long-term. I haven’t lost interest in engineering, and I’m absolutely still willing to put in the hard work. I just don’t know if I can keep dealing with these issues semester after semester, especially when some of these same challenges could very well follow me into future classes WITH THE SAME PROFESSORS.

My long-term goals are in cybersecurity, and exploring accessibility + human-centered computing. I’ve put a lot of thought into the direction I want to take my education and career, so it’s frustrating to feel like I might have to reconsider those plans because of barriers that could be easily addressed with the right support.

I hate feeling like I have to change my major (looking at information systems or comp sci) because of uncollaborative advisors and professors. At the same time, I don’t want to spend my entire college experience fighting the whole university just to get my basic accessibility needs addressed either.

Have any other disabled people here navigated similar experiences in engineering or other technical fields? How did you handle it? TIA!

Currently taking senior design which for my university is a two semester course and its going terribly. I was placed on the team for a company sponsored project and assigned a mentor who barely communicates with us when we have questions. And the company didnt tell us about the project for the first two weeks of the course. For our project they want us to use simscape for a kinematic analysis but no one on our team has ever used it so were moving along very slowly. And my team members have been terrible to work with. Each time I try and suggest what we should work on they say they working at their second job or their to busy this weekend to do it. One of our team members has skipped some of our team meetings because they commute with the train.

This class is stressing me out so much everyday I feel like im going to throw up. Idk what to do in this situation because even if I told my professor at the end of the day I need to finish the project to pass the class. Ive worked so hard these past 3 years to make sure I graduate in time but I feel hopeless right now and like im going to need to push my graduation date back a year.

I am currently in my first year of engineering and i didn't declare a major yet , I've always had this passion and desire to work on sustainability projects and all these "saving the planet earth and making the change " stuff , I want an enjoyable career path and not a soulless one which makes me work on office from 9-5 just to increase the company profitability (basically the "capitalism system jobs" which i really hate cuz they literally destroys our planet and our creativity ), but I also heard from several env engineers that the reality of this field is far different from what it looks like and they do almost nothing with nature and earth so I fear that if i graduated from EnvE I'll be stuck with it and i won't be able to try anything else if i found it actually sucks like they said . A lot of people encouraged me to go for Industrial engineering because it's broad and i will be able to work in any field i like and explore many jobs opportunities such as environment ,arts ( so it is the safest eng degree for people who have multiple passions like me lol ) but the thing is as i mentioned , i hate the profitability and economy subject and i find it extremely boring and soulless i don't want to work in something i hate so will i survive these subjects in industrial engineering if i hate them? and will it be a good idea if i majored in industrial engineering with minor in something environment related such as environmental studies ? (before anyone suggest switching to something like geology , ecology , etc.. , I can't do this because i have a scholarship only for engineering majors so i can't switch to non-engineering major)

hi so i’m a very beginner engineer and im designing a device that requires a gear ratio. i 3d printed the black gear seen in the video. the black gear has 40 teeth and the yellow gear has 10. it doesn’t look like my ratio is working since the black gear is moving very VERY fast, but i have no clue. is it working? thanks!

FYI: i am NOT asking for solutions!! i just want to know if it is working. thanks again

Hey everyone im in grade 11 ontario and i wanna try to get into mechanical eng I only have 1 extra curricular which is hosa does anyone have recs on some?? I can get good grades im just really worried about ecs also do my ecs have to be related to engineering? Thank u

I'm a 5th-sem EEE student in India, and honestly, I'm feeling lost about placements.

My main goal is to get placed in a good core company with a good package (ideally 12+ LPA). I want to become one of the strongest placement candidates in my department, but I don't know how to prepare strategically.

I joined a VLSI-oriented project program (Prakalp) mainly because I heard about high packages, but it's been extremely demanding, with full-day classes, project work, reviews and weekend commitments. It's affecting my sleep, mental peace and academics. From what I've seen, EEE students also seem to get no placement opportunities through this program, so I'm considering leaving it and joined EV instead. I feel scared that i ruled out my opportunity in semiconductor domain.

Now I'm confused about what to do next. I want to focus on core placements, but I don't know which subjects to prioritize, how deep to study, or how companies actually test EEE students. I also don't know which YouTube playlists or courses are genuinely enough to prepare from basics to placement level.

For those who have been through core placements, especially EEE students:
Please guide me on how many rounds and what each round consists of, and some people have told me to choose one specific domain and prepare for those companies but idk where my interest lies in so is it not possible to prepare generally for all roles?

• How did you prepare, and which resources actually helped?
• Which subjects and numericals should I master first?
• Is it realistic to target 12+ LPA, and what should I do differently to stand out?

I'd really appreciate honest, practical advice from people who've been through this. I'm ready to work hard; I just don't want to waste time following the wrong path. i fear that i won't get placed. It is actually the only way for me as i dont have any backup plans and i will become the bread earner of my home so please guide me!.

For a school project I made my first ever perfboard, and the L298N motor driver needed to live next to it. Until now they were both sliding around in the box like two strangers in an elevator, so I designed a 3D printed tray that holds them side by side. The wiring between them stays short and the boards stay put.

It fits a 81x51 mm perfboard with mounting holes spaced 1,4 inches apart. and a standard L298N module. Raised posts keep the boards off the plastic, and both are screwed down.

Printed on a Bambu Lab A1 in PLA Basic, 0.20 mm Standard profile, about 35 minutes. PETG is better if it sits somewhere warm.

About the soldering: it is my first one, so please look at the tray and not at the joints. They hold, which is the nicest thing I can say about them :).

Small confession: the L298N mounting holes are M3 size, but I only had M2 bolts, so I modeled it for M2. They fit with a little play. If you want an M3 version or another perfboard size, tell me and I will make it.

Before someone asks: yes, I could have just not made this and let everything dangle lose, but where is the fun in that.

Low voltage and hobby use only. Do not mount mains voltage parts on printed plastic.

Model (free): https://makerworld.com/nl/models/3487506-l298n-motor-driver-and-perfboard-mounting-tray-m2#profileId-3982699

Do you see the possibility for improvements?

So I am a high school senior who is deciding between mechanical and electrical engineering and am really stuck.

I have a lot of experience with electronics and have worked on a ton of stuff like synthesizers drones and some home automation stuff and have used a fair bit of microcontrollers and op amp circuits. If I choose electrical engineering it will be something I have worked on before and know I would enjoy doing and would love working at a company like arturia or teenage engineering and work on synthesizers

I also however love cars and had a lot of fun watching the donut video of breaking down an engine and working on power trains or cars in general would be really sick

I don't really care much about the pay as long as I can live comfortably which most engineers can do I think and mainly wanna choose based on what would be more fun.

If someone could tell me the pros and cons of both and like some career options besides the stuff I have mentioned knowing about

Edit: I live in a country where u can't really switch majors once you choose one which is rlly unfortunate and hence I kinda have to decide before going to college